Modern shaving systems incorporate soap elements in the design of the shaving cartridge, oftentimes referred to as a 2-in-1 type razor cartridge since there is no initial lathering step (e.g., no need for shave gel/cream, soap, or body wash). Examples of 2-in-1 razor cartridges are readily found in the marketplace in female razor systems, for instance, the Gillette® Venus® Breeze™ razor or the Schick® Intuition® and Intuition Plus® razor products.
In the case of the Schick Intuition razor cartridge, there is a soap ring disposed around the periphery of the cartridge. In the case of the Gillette Venus Breeze razor cartridge, there are two shaving aid elements, generally comprising a shaving aid holder having a shaving aid material or composition (e.g., a shaving aid portion) disposed thereon, the latter for instance being in the form of gel bars or soap elements. These shaving aid portions are formed by over-molding onto shaving aid holders, the latter oftentimes referred to as “wings.” The attachment of the shaving aid portion to each wing is typically accomplished by embedding the wing within the bulk of soap.
Such wing type cartridges, for instance, are described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,703,361, entitled Shaving Razors and Cartridges, assigned to the Assignee hereof. Referring to FIGS. 1, 1A, 2, 2A, and 3A-3C, a prior art razor cartridge 10 on handle 11 is shown having shaving aid portions 12a and 12b which are carried on a pair of wings 14a and 14b (shown in FIGS. 3A-3C). There, the wings 14a, 14b themselves may be formed of the same plastic as the razor cartridge frame 15 such as a molded plastic, or may be formed of a different material. For instance, the wings may be formed of the same material as hinges 16a, 16b that join the wings and frame in which case the wings and hinges may be over-molded onto the frame in a single molding step.
These wings in the shaving aid holder generally necessarily include a plurality of apertures 17 as shown in FIGS. 3B and 3C used for allowing the shaving aid composition to flow through the thickness of the wing and to form a mechanical interlock (e.g., by flowing together to form a unitary mass) on the back side of the wing, so as to secure the shaving aid portion to the wing. In this manner, shaving aid composition is disposed on both sides of the wing as shown in FIG. 2A.
With shaving aid portion on the back side of the wing, a major disadvantage of cartridges as arranged in the prior art is that any amount of the shaving aid material or composition on the back side of the wing may likely be wasted. This is because the portion of the shaving aid portions 12a and 12b found on the back side of the cartridge, opposite the skin, necessarily deployed on the back side of the wings 14a and 14b to secure the portions 12a and 12b to the wings as shown in FIGS. 2 and 2A, is generally never used. Where shaving aid material is a costly component of this type of razor cartridge, this may generally not be desirable.
Furthermore, these structures (for the “wings” or other plastic mechanisms) used for shaving aid holders often do not provide adequate clasping mechanisms for holding the shaving aid composition in place in repeated wet shaving environments and many times the shaving aid composition is let go from the holder or falls off while the effectiveness of the cartridge is still viable.